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As an entrepreneur, conquering challenge and failure is
essential to the success of your business. You can learn to
cultivate that resilience by training your brain to stay positive
when times are tough.

"People tend to have a cognitive bias toward their failures, and
toward negativity," says Matthew Della Porta, a positive
psychologist and organizational consultant. Our brains are more
likely to seek out negative information and store it more quickly
to memory.

Of course, that bias is not always bad. Acknowledging problems
and facing failures can lead us to better solutions. But too
often, we go overboard, and beat ourselves up for our failures or
let ourselves dwell in the negative.

By consciously increasing our focus on the positive, we start to
even the balance. We find a happy medium where we can address
failures and challenges without letting them get us down, leaving
us more motivated,
productive, and likely to succeed.

Try these three tips to help you train your brain to stay
positive:

1. Express gratitude. Negative events loom large
unless you consciously balance them out. "When you're faced with
challenges, it's important to take stock of what's going well,"
Della Porta says. Thinking about the good in your life can help
balance that bias, giving your brain the extra time it needs to
register and remember a positive event.

To help your brain store positive events, reflect on what you're
grateful for and why at least once a week. Write down your
blessings, such as the opportunity to pursue a career you love or
a family that supports you. If you prefer a daily habit, then
keep a nightly log of good things that happened that day. "Just
keep it very short," Della Porta says. "If you try to hammer
[gratitude] home, then it becomes mundane." Day One, a journaling app for Apple
devices ($4.99), or OhLife, a free email-based journal, can to
help you do this.

2. Repeat positive affirmations. As any
politician or advertiser knows, the more often you hear a
message, the more likely you are to believe it. The same goes for
messages about who you are and what you are capable of doing. By
repeating positive affirmations with conviction several times
each morning, you are training your brain to believe them. "Over
time, you'll start to internalize them," Della Porta says. Repeat
your affirmations silently if you feel self-conscious.

Choose two to three affirmations that represent your values and
goals, such as 'I can handle whatever comes my way,' 'There is
plenty of time,' or 'I’m getting better every day.' The
repetition will influence the way you interpret negative events,
making you more resilient. "Especially if you're predisposed to
negative thinking, this can be extremely effective," Della Porta
says.

3. Challenge negative thoughts. Each time a
negative thought arises, we choose how to respond. If left to our
own devices, we tend to dwell. Our brains home in on negative
events so they seem much bigger and more significant than they
are. To combat that, start by imagining the thought as separate
from yourself, as something you can observe and deconstruct. "Get
in the habit of distancing yourself instead of dwelling," Della
Porta says.

Next, challenge negative thoughts that are unfairly
self-deprecating. For example, if your startup doesn't get the
traction you hoped, you might think, "I'm a failure." That's
untrue and unproductive. Instead, practice interpreting the same
event differently. You might say, I worked really hard but I
didn't account for a quirk of the market, so I'm disappointed,
but now I’m going to try again with new information. That
interpretation is gentler, truer, and more proactive. "At first,
[this strategy will] be hard and you’ll think it doesn't work,"
Della Porta says. "But over time, it'll become automatic and
negative thoughts will be less likely to come up. No one does
this naturally; you have to learn and practice."